


Remembering a Brother

by Erikthonius



Series: The Collected Funeral Musings of Nico di Angelo [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, M/M, Wakes & Funerals, heroic death, sorry about this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erikthonius/pseuds/Erikthonius
Summary: Nico presides at Austin's funeral and tells the truth about what really happened
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: The Collected Funeral Musings of Nico di Angelo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599559
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Remembering a Brother

**Author's Note:**

> What follows are notes for the book “The Memoirs of Nico di Angelo,’ which Will and Hazel convinced him to write as a way of dealing with his duty, as the son of Hades, to preside over the funeral rites of so many of his friends and colleagues Often, he finds some comfort and therapeutic benefits in recollecting his friends’ lives.

Will was heartbroken. He found out when he got out of surgery. It was a routine operation, and everything went smoothly, but when he got out of the OR, he was told, “You got a call from Kayla Knowles. She said it was urgent.”

He called her from his office. She barely got the words out before both of them broke down sobbing. He didn’t even remember which of his colleagues drove him home. When he got there, I was waiting at the front door, my arms open and my face frozen. Of course, I had known. I always knew, especially when it was family. In their time at camp, all of Will’s Apollo siblings had taken me in as one of their own, but none more than Kayla and Austin. Will was closest to those two as well.

Very little was said in our house that night, but we held each other tightly until dawn.

In the morning, Will opened the paper. He’d called the hospital to tell them that he wouldn’t be coming in that day. He looked to see the headline: “Grammy Award Winning Saxophonist Killed in Gunfight at Drug Den.” The article went on to say that a number of notorious drug dealers were also killed in the fight. He threw down the paper after reading about “Lake’s long struggle with addiction and the sordid tale of a drug deal gone wrong.” He knew that was a lie. 

After growing up with an alcoholic mother, Austin wouldn’t touch that stuff. He knew how easy it would be for someone like him to get hooked, so he never drank, he never did any drugs (except a little weed and that about once a year). He kept up a pretense of it sometimes, in fact he’d formed a friendship with Pollux, one of Mr. D.’s sons partly to learn how to ‘fake drink’ to keep up his image as a hard partier. That image was part of his armor, just like Leo’s incessant joking or my standoffishness.

I came into the room. I was careful of my husband’s feelings. I knew how close Austin and Will had been. Hades, I’d been close to Austin as well. Austin and Kayla were the first ones in the madhouse that was the Apollo cabin to welcome me as an honorary brother.

“I’ll oversee the funeral, of course,” I told Will. “But it can’t be at camp. Most of Austin’s ex-spouses were mortal.”

Will knew that. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, but he was grateful for my coming forth. He gestured at the article in the paper.

I nodded. “I saw that. I’m sure it’s a cover story. Pollux mentioned that the two of them were working on something, and I have a feeling I can get the real story out of him.”

=====

The funeral started off as a large affair with a fair amount of press. After all, Austin Lake had won several grammys and had a large following, but when the paparazzi and the groupies had been cleared out, courtesy of Cecil and a few Ares alumni, I surveyed the remaining crowd. There were still a lot of people, but I noticed that the only ones in the room who weren’t demigods or legacies were Austin’s twelve ex-wives and husbands. They were all musicians and had provided the music for the service, a beautiful medley of Austin’s compositions.

One of them, a Russian violinist named Katya Kamzimsky, had pulled me aside. She’d been a frequent guest in our house, even giving our son Michael his first violin lessons. She was also the most clear-sighted of Austin’s many spouses, both in terms of being able to see through the Mist and being able to see through other people’s bullshit. I always thought she might have been the best match for my late brother-in-law, which was probably why their marriage had been the shortest.

“You know, konyetchno, [of course] that all of us (she gestured to the assembled musicians) know all about this how do you say, polubog, ah yes, demigod business, so you can speak freely among us.” Her grief had thickened her accent.

“Spasibo,” [thank you] I replied. Both as a demigod and as in my professional life I’d traveled extensively and picked up languages easily, Russian among them.

Katya smiled at his use of her native tongue and continued. “I know that there is more to what happened than what the papers said. Our Austin had more to him than what the world saw.”

I nodded. I knew that the face my brother-in-law presented to the world, a partying flirt who was seldom serious about anything besides his music, covered the deep sorrow of one of the most sensitive souls I’d ever known. I excused myself. It was time to begin the real funeral, not the show for the eyes of mortals, but the ancient rites suitable for a son of the god Apollo.

I felt a little self-conscious, singing the odes in front of so many fine musicians, but the alumni of the Apollo cabin, my foster brothers and sisters joined me, and their voices blended with mine, adding an incredible power to the ancient words. I saw that Drew joined in as well. I remembered how Drew and Austin had fought and quarreled at camp (Will had told me about Drew giving him a black eye his first week at camp), but as adults, they’d collaborated, Drew being a very fine singer herself. She still refused to show any weakness, but I could see that she was fighting to hold back the tears at his death.

At last, when the verses had been sung, the oils had been applied to Austin’s body, and the coin had been placed in his mouth, I rose to address the assembly.

“Dear friends and family, it is time to tell the truth about our brother’s death. You’ve seen what the mortal world believes to have happened, but here we can tell the real tale. We who truly knew Austin Lake knew that the face he showed the world covered a deeper purpose.”

I gestured to Pollux, who was in a wheelchair. Pollux had been with Austin the night he’d been killed, and the son of Dionysus had been badly injured as well, but he’d managed to get out before the authorities had arrived. He’d barely managed to make it to the camp infirmary, and Will had been ministering to him while he’d told them what had really happened the night that Austin had died. It was Pollux’s place to tell the rest of the story, but I began it for him.

“Pollux had discovered that a group of Keres, servants of Akhlys, had concocted a new drug, powerfully addictive, that would slowly devour its users from the inside out. They had even found a group of mortals who were willing to bankroll their operation. Austin used his connections to trace the group and his reputation to gain entrance to their business. When he discovered the Keres among them, he and Pollux went in armed with Celestial bronze weapons,” I told the crowd.

Pollux took over at this point, but he had to use a microphone, since he was still badly wounded, and he could only speak briefly. “Austin fought bravely. He took out most of the Keres with his arrows. When the monsters turned on their human partners, we charged in to try to save the mortals, but there were still too many of them, and you know how monsters are when their human ‘pets’ fail them. We couldn’t save them, and when the horde came after us, he covered my body with his own so that I could get free. He died a true hero.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, and my consciousness withdrew from the mortal world. When I saw what I’d been looking for, I returned to the moment and looked at the crowd. Will had come to my side and taken my hand.

“Fellow demigods, friends, I have seen Austin’s spirit judged. As Pollux said, he died a hero. Children of Apollo, your brother,” I paused and clasped Will’s hand tightly, correcting myself. “Our brother is in Elysium.”


End file.
